We can no longer look upon the time of some ancient prophet and his small following as the golden age for humanity. We have been too exposed to the rest of the world through the mass media to pretend in a medieval way that our particular community is the only valid one. We can paint our enemy as the devil but no one is going to believe it anymore. That we are all human beings with the same basic drives and potential is evident to all open minds. The ugly head of religious fundamentalism has a fair amount of bigotry and a number of terrorist tactics left but this is only a sign that it is being rejected.

We now live in a global age wherein we must come together as a planet. For this new era we need a universal spiritual tradition that recognizes the sacred nature of all human beings regardless of their beliefs, and which is founded immutable cosmic laws. Different cultures have developed different spiritual approaches which we must come to understand and respect. This is the same as different cultures have developed different types of art, music, literature, or philosophy.

We can no longer say that only European art is good and that Chinese or Indian art is barbaric, for example, though even in the last century many educated Europeans had such beliefs. We now recognize that as human beings we share a common planet and that there is much delight in sharing foreign cultures. We should have at least the same openness in the spiritual realm. Unfortunately the spiritual realm is where we have the most intolerance though, as the domain of life that deals with the infinite, it is a place where intolerance has no real place.

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